Ireland's Ancient East needs to deliver today!

On Thursday 25^th June I was kindly invited, by Minister Paudie Coffey TD, to attend a workshop on the tourism project called Ireland’s Ancient East, which was chaired by Minister Pascal Donohoe TD, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport.

So many holiday choices.

It was great to note that Minister Donohoe spent the whole day in Waterford City and County seeing at firsthand our tourism offering and also I am sure that he took the opportunity to meet and greet many businesses involved in his ministerial portfolio.

We met in the Granville Hotel with industry representatives and members of the Council Executive.

As we are all aware Ireland’s Ancient East project was muted quite some time ago (possible as long ago as two years) and is in every single way the response to the highly successful Wild Atlantic Way project launched a number of years ago. The Wild Atlantic Way is literally pulling hundreds of thousands of tourists to the West and the unfortunate consequence of this is that less and less International tourists are coming to the Waterford and the South East. The Wild Atlantic Way has been a massively successful project and there can be absolutely no doubt that the strength of this new west coast brand will be nearly impossible to compete with and therefore we are yet again playing catch up to the rest of Ireland Inc.

Ireland's Ancient East.

The simple truth is that Waterford and the South East get the smallest amount of International tourist and more alarmingly we get a very insignificant amount of the available overseas tourism spend. And it is this very small percentage of spend that we should all be very concerned about. It is Tourism Ireland that promotes all things Irish in terms of this Emerald Isle as a destination. They really are only concerned with visiting numbers and the reality is that it makes no difference if 7 million tourists come to just one place as long as that place is in Ireland somewhere. So as a destination attractor Ireland’s Ancient East will have to be very special indeed if we are to get an ever increasing larger slice of the International tourism pie.

Despite all the efforts over the last number of years Waterford is still seen as a “very quick visit” for International tourists and as a results many spend literally a couple of hours, and a couple of Euro, in Waterford Crystal and the Viking Triangle and then hop back on to a tour bus and then it is off to Kilkenny or off down to the West of Ireland.

This of course is not what we want and the Ireland’s Ancient East project has to go an awful long way go to remedy this leakage of tourists and their much needed injection of Euro into our local economy. We are almost back to the same old scenario when our tourist numbers visited Kilbarry, bypassing the City altogether, and stayed two hours then it was off down the Cork Road and into the West.

The Wild Atlantic Way.

The fact the politicians from within Fine Gael cannot agree on whether Waterford should have its own tourism offering as part of Ireland’s Ancient East or be part of the wider Wild Atlantic Way does give cause for concern when you consider just how far behind we are in terms of our offering. On the day the Minister Donohoe was in Waterford his party colleague, Mr Deasy TD, was on WLR FM calling for Waterford Council to once again push for inclusion in the Wild Atlantic way. I personally believe that we have to have our own unique offering and from my very limited knowledge of all things Wild and Atlantic I do not believe we are in fact on the Atlantic at all, and we are on the Celtic Sea (I think) and as such we need our own unique selling point as part of a wider tourism offering! 

Interesting to note that Cork is hedging its bets and is on both maps of the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland's Ancient East - you have got to hand it to them!

Minister Donohoe stated that he wished to see 600,000 additional tourists come to the South East by 2020, but that timescale is of course far too late or Waterford City and the wider South East region and this was pointed out to the Minister during the workshop. Quite simply need those 600,000 additional tourist now and next year and not 4 or 5 years away. Like our retail sector we need to see increased numbers coming immediately to the City and County, and all manner of hills and mountains need to be moved to achieve this. I often wonder if it is only me that can see the need for urgency and rapid implementation of projects that will bring financial security to the City and I do wonder if other see the City and County through a pair of optically challenge set of rose tinted glasses.

I pointed out to the Minister that communicating the messaging of the project is key and vital to its success, and that all front-line responders needed to be aware of the project and its objectives so that tourist would benefit from the correct information. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, unless the appropriate senior civil servants and their departments get behind the project it is doomed to be moving along at a snail’s pace when we require the implementation speed of a Peregrine falcon!

When you consider that most tour operators are already selling 18 to 24 months ahead we are realistically taking about 2017 at the very earliest before we can even look at persuading these tour operators to come and consider Ireland’s Ancient East. And we will then have try to persuade these operators to leave their traditional markets and bear in mind that these existing markets will be fighting tooth and nail to keep their existing supply chain and that tourism income. It really will be an monumental uphill struggle.

The success of Ireland’s Ancient East project will ultimately be down to buy-in from all sectors concerned within the tourism industry and history tells us, which we never seems to learn from, that for such a project to work we need to see real on-the-ground-work being down and figuratively speaking we need to see people prepared to “wear out their shoe leather”.

Failure to get the industry informed and get the industry enthused will deliver nothing. It is all very well communicating this message internally and within Government Departments but getting the message out to a wider stakeholder group is a whole different proposition.

And we can see similar mistakes with the opportunities around the Purple Flag in Waterford, where there has been a communication void in terms of message reinforcement. Yes, we need better stakeholder buy-in but the whole message dissemination around the Purple Flag in Waterford leaves one wondering if it could not have been done better.

Alchemists workshop.

So, the Ireland’s Ancient East project has the potential to deliver, but only if Minister Donohoe is prepared to rattle a few cages, stand on a few toes and move the year 2020 to 2017.

Though I am not sure alchemy is in his portfolio!

Mr Browne's boys made us look like a bit of a joke!

The per-referendum headlines last week were all centred around “The People’s Debate” with Vincent Browne, which was aired on Wednesday 20^th May.

I attended the live recording on Monday 18^th May having been asked to do so by the show’s producers. I was not sure what to expect but I was pretty sure, as with all these types of pre-recorded and edited shows, that what would go out on the evening of Wednesday 20^th May could either be great for Waterford’s stock or detrimental to Waterford’s stock.

Unfortunately, we got the later.

To set the scene. On the evening of the recording Vincent set the tone with the audience well in advance of any actual recording and he skilfully asked the audience what they wanted to discuss and debate. He steered us though all the hot and spicy topics for the debate and then brought in the three victims (TD’s), like gladiators entering the Coliseum. Only our Gladiators were armed with pen and paper and there was not a gladius or trident to be seen. Minister Paudie Coffey, John Halligan and Ciara Conway all entered the arena together, to a mixture of one or two muted cheers, lots of boos and much heckling from an audience clearly baying for blood.

The shows concept has now moved on from a debate to a shouting and venting match with the each weekly audience getting progressively more vocal and I feel that every week the new audience is trying to outdo the previous week’s show. There are approximately 24 more shows to be recorded and aired and I would hate to think what the audience’s mood or fervour will be as the show nears the end of its run. Clearly, the whole concept of debate has been lost and there are many angry voters wishing to vent and express their displeasure at their local TD’s and this platform is an ideal opportunity to do just that.

Regrettably, what we then get is a show that like so many others is edited to either be positive or negative about the City or Town where the recording took place. We must bear in mind that Waterford has to be even more positive than our competing Cities and Towns if we are to fast track our economic recovery, and the negativity that came from this recording will do Waterford’s stock absolutely no favours at all. And we have all seen the reality TV shows where clever editing has made contestants look like angels or devils, and when said contestant is evicted or voted out they are surprised that they have been portrayed in such a bad light. This unfortunately is the result of editing and often many of the good positive parts of such programmes are literally felt on the cutting room floor.

On the evening of the recording I know that there were a number of international business people, visiting Waterford, not too far from the programme venue and had they happened to wander into the debate I would hate to think what impression of Waterford they would have taken back to the States or Europe.

We have to be very, very careful of the PR we are producing for the City and County if we are in fact serious about bringing the City forward, seeking investment and ultimately reducing our unemployment rate. Shouting and berating politicians on national primetime television is not the way to go. Whether or not they deserve such vilification the circa 90 minutes of negative TV coverage is the last thing Waterford needs at the moment and we as citizens should be aware of that.

And just to emphasise my point of how positive PR makes us feel better and makes the Country look better we only have to assess at the impact the referendum vote on Friday 22^nd May will have on Ireland Inc. There can be no doubt that this voting issue received worldwide attention and will well and truly put Ireland on a very positive footing as the only country in the world to pass such constitutional change.

And what this says about this for every green county goes way beyond the actual vote and this change will, in time, make Ireland a much better place for investment and I am absolutely sure that the issue of equality will be one of the investment criteria that many a multi-national will now look at when seeking investment in Europe. As real equality says an awful lot about a country and its people and this will NOT go unnoticed.

Back to the debate. I received a phone call on the morning of Wednesday 20^th May asking me what I thought of the Monday night recording. I stated the obvious and said that I felt there was a lot of negativity in the room and depending on how the programme would be edited it could show Waterford in a good or bad light. I also commented on the performance of our TD’s and on the strength of this I was asked to appear on the live post-show analysis programme. I duly travelled up to Dublin to, in my mind, set the record straight about all the positive stories around Waterford at the moment. Alas, there was simply insufficient time to get all my points across and in the very short time I was given to speak I tried to get in as much positivity about the City and County as possible.

The lessons to be learned are very clear. If we are to put Waterford on a national television platform those participating must be mindful of the audience that will be watching the final edited programme. As I have said on many occasions we are ALL responsible for job creation, positive reinforcement and talking positively about this great City and County. We ALL have negativity in our lives but when the opportunity arises we must switch on our positive gene for the betterment of everyone and sadly for “The People’s Debate” we missed that opportunity.

 

Finally, I could not sign off without once again saying a gargantuan “Well done Ireland” in the referendum vote on 22^nd May. Whilst, I could not vote myself the overwhelming YES vote was a huge endorsement by the people of Ireland and to see so many people engaged in the debate was extremely positive, upbeat and heart-warming. 

I wonder if there will be as much enthusiasm for the next General Election!